


Weapon and the Wound

by Viridian5



Category: Andromeda
Genre: Drama, Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-05-04
Updated: 2001-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dylan asks about some of Harper’s darker methods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weapon and the Wound

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "An Affirming Flame" and "Fear and Loathing in the Milky Way."
> 
> Canon doesn’t say yet what happens when they hand Hasturi’s diary over to Dylan, though I hear we’ll see it soon, which will no doubt make this story an AU. I had to write this anyway.

"You wanted to see me?" Harper asked as he walked in. Dylan turned away from the window and toward him. Damn. Dylan had the diary.

Harper waited for the lecture, but Dylan didn’t say a word and just stared at him. Waiting for him to speak. Harper knew the plan here. Dylan figured he’d be so unnerved by the silence and his panicked thoughts of how far Trance had ratted him out that he’d start babbling nervously and mindlessly, confessing or trying to justify himself or both. Revealing more than Trance had in the process.

Well, the joke was on Dylan. Harper had already been wondering for three days now, so long that his nervousness had turned to a dull ache. It was kind of a relief that it had come out and he could get this over with. He’d been right, he knew that, but he also knew that Dylan wouldn’t see it that way.

Dylan would have to make the first move and start letting Harper know how much Trance had told him.

Dylan looked more and more surprised the longer the silence stretched. Nobody thought Harper could keep his mouth shut, but he only had to draw on years of hiding from various raids to find the quiet and patience.

Finally, Dylan broke the silence first by asking, "Why didn’t you tell me about the diary?"

"Trance had it. I figured it was up to her." If she had chosen not to reveal it to Dylan, Harper wouldn’t have said anything.

"What is it, really?"

"If it’s everything people say, it contains slipstream coordinates that could take a ship back to Tarn-Vedra. Makes it priceless."

"She said that you tortured a man to get the information needed to find it."

Harper shrugged. "I roughed him up a little, made a few threats. I’m not shedding any tears, and neither should you. Gerentex is a bad guy. He was the one who tried to take Andromeda from you by force after pulling you out of the black hole. He shot Trance, and she would have died if she hadn’t been whatever the hell she is. It took some fast-talking from me to keep me and Trance alive when he bluffed his way onto the Maru this time." He tried to lighten things a little. "And he owed me money." Dylan just shook his head, so Harper said, "Look, he was electroshocking us for fun and to keep us in line. Am I supposed to invite him to a tea party or something?"

Dylan looked surprised and unhappy. "Electroshocking?"

"Trance didn’t tell you? He injected each of us with a microgenerator that produced a very painful shock at the push of a remote button. He said he’d always wanted to see if he could make a human glow. If I hadn’t done some fancy maneuvering, he might have fried us. Trance removed the generators almost as soon as we got back on the Andromeda." Harper pressed his advantage. "Trance didn’t tell you?"

"No."

"Hunh."

"She did tell me some of the things you said."

"Tough talk. People like Gerentex view others as belonging into two varieties: predator or prey. I had to try to make sure he didn’t figure me as prey."

"Is that how you see people too?"

That hurt. It shouldn’t have. "You run into people like Gerentex a lot these days." Meaning: Don’t judge what you don’t understand, 300-Years-Out-of-Date Idyllic Past Man.

But Dylan did that for a living. "She said... that you told him that you were a ‘good guy’ with us but that you survived for 20 years on Earth by being a ‘nasty piece of work.’ Over your time pursuing the diary you threatened to crack his skull open, use Nietzschean torture techniques once used on you, and cut him apart with a nano-welder."

Harper knew he would have killed Gerentex if Trance hadn’t stopped him, but Dylan didn’t have to know. "It got results. And get that look off your face, okay?"

"What look?"

"That ‘oh, you poor lost orphans of the Commonwealth’ look. There is no better way, not on the outside. Things are good on the Andromeda, and you haven’t seen the half of what’s out there now. I had to turn hard to survive. I wouldn’t be here now without it."

Dylan didn’t look angry. Now he had that earnest, "I’m here to save you" look that could amuse Harper or set his teeth on edge depending on the circumstances. Guess which one this was?

"I’m not lecturing you," Dylan said. "I’m concerned for you."

"Don’t be. I don’t need it. It’s done."

"You don’t have to stay like that."

All you need is love? Please. "Of course I have to. Gerentex would have killed us immediately if I hadn’t gone back to that mental space. Being _nice_ sure as hell wouldn’t keep him from shooting us. I have to be hard." He sounded almost desperate to himself. He had to stop.

It wasn’t like big, clueless hero Dylan could do anything about it anyway.

"Trance said that at some points she could swear that you were trying to goad him into killing you."

"It all depends on what you can live with. Or die with. There are some things I’m never letting anybody do to me ever again." He had to shut up. He was doing exactly what he shouldn’t have been. Harper reached for a diversion. "If I were you, I’d ask why Trance held the book back from you for three days. And, you know, for a while she had me and Gerentex convinced that she’d kill us and tell you that we’d killed one another. She was _very_ convincing."

"You’re saying that I shouldn’t trust Trance."

Harper shrugged again, elaborately casual. "I’m saying that you shouldn’t trust anyone."

"That’s a rotten way to live."

"It’s better than the alternative." Harper backed out of the room. "Just consider the evidence." He left before any other stupid things flew out of his mouth. If Dylan had any more questions, he could hunt him down.

  


* * *

Clutching Hasturi’s diary tighter, so tightly that his fingers started to hurt, Dylan stared at the space where Harper had been. He might be holding the key that could take them to Tarn-Vedra, the long-lost capitol of the Commonwealth.

If only that was all he needed to fix the damage already done and make everything right.

 

### End


End file.
